IEEE Paper Template in A4 (V1) Rahmi Fadilah LET: Linguistics, Literature and Language Teaching Journal Vol. 13 No. 1 2023 LET: Linguistics, Literature and English Teaching Journal ||Volume||13||Issue||1||Pages||85-104||2023|| |P-ISSN: 20869606; E-ISSN: 25492454| Available online at: http://jurnal.uin-antasari.ac.id/index.php Teachers’ Teaching Reflection: English Teachers’ Challenges in Rural Areas of Indonesia Rahmi Fadilah rahmifadilah@fpp.unp.ac.id Honesty Yonanda Ayudhia honestyonandaa@fbs.unp.ac.id Vischa Mansyera Pratama vischamansyera@fpp.unp.ac.id Violintikha Harmawan violinharmawan@fpp.unp.ac.id Padang State University, Indonesia Article History: Received: 14 March 2023 Accepted: 15 June 2023 Issues about education in urban areas and rural areas are crucial in the Indonesian context. The reason is the differentiation of the quality of Indonesian education across the country because of those areas. During their practice, English teachers in that area face many limitations that hinder the process of teaching and learning. This case study aimed to explore two English teachers’ challenges in teaching in rural areas of Indonesia and how they overcome those challenges to maximize their role as a teacher through their teaching reflection on interview and document analysis. The result showed that English teachers tried to deal with their own teaching condition and institution, their students, and socio-cultural conditions around them. As the solution, teachers overcome those problems by strengthening their roles as a teacher and understanding social pedagogy. However, there is still a need for English teachers to get more training related to their job in teaching English in rural areas. Corresponding Author: rahmifadilah@fpp.unp.ac.id Keywords: Rural area education; ELT; Teachers’ challenges; Indonesia http://jurnal.uin-antasari.ac.id/index.php mailto:mugahedabdu@gmail.com mailto:honestyonandaa@fbs.unp.ac.id mailto:vischamansyera@fpp.unp.ac.id mailto:violinharmawan@fpp.unp.ac.id mailto:honestyonandaa@fbs.unp.ac.id P a g e | 86 Rahmi Fadilah LET: Linguistics, Literature and Language Teaching Journal Vol. 13 No. 1 2023 INTRODUCTION The terms urban and rural areas are not only about the geographical condition but also it is about the educational condition. As the stereotype, education in the rural areas seem to be lower than urban area because of many limitations. It also becomes the major concern of every country to solve the problem of education in the rural area because there is a different setting in the rural and urban area regarding educational system (Mccracken & Miller, 1988). In Indonesia context, issues about education in rural areas also become the concern of the government. In the law of Indonesia, every single citizen has to get a good and same quality of education. According to the document from ministry of education in 2012, there are several issues about education in the rural areas. First, it is the condition of the teacher. There is a limitation in the number of teachers; it can be seen through the unbalance distribution of teachers in every school in the rural areas. Also, many teachers are having low competencies in their subject which make them face many difficulties in teaching and learning process. Furthermore, they are allowed to teach the subject that is not suitable with their competencies based on needs because of teachers’ shortage. The second issue is about the students’ condition, they do not have much motivation to learn, so the number of school dropout rates is higher day by day. The third issue is the participation from the society, which includes parents, is very low. They do not really care about the schools’ condition where their children learn; instead, they focus on their own job to support their own lives. The last issue is about facilities; there are not enough facilities for teaching and learning in order to access better education in the rural area. In addition, on the students’ side, many of them do not have good motivation to learn English, because they think English is difficult and not really important for their life. Moreover, the family matter, socio-economic factor, facilities, low competencies teacher, and the book availability also become the challenges of teaching English in the rural areas (Hossain, 2016). Several researchers concern with the issues of teaching English in rural areas. First, Milon (2016) was doing a research entitled “Challenges at Teaching English at Rural Area Primary School of Bangladesh”. This research presented the P a g e | 87 Rahmi Fadilah LET: Linguistics, Literature and Language Teaching Journal Vol. 13 No. 1 2023 current condition of teaching English in the rural area primary school of Bangladesh when there is an exact curriculum for teaching English at primary school but the curriculum does not apply accurately at rural areas. The data were collected through interview, questionnaire, and class observation. The study indicated that most of the rural schools’ students are weak in English due to lack of skilled and trained teachers, proper teacher training, using proper teaching methods and materials, limited contact hours, class size, inadequate knowledge on pedagogy and so on. Second, a research entitled “Difficulties of Teaching English at Primary Level in Rural Area of Pakistan”, this research was conducted by Behraam, Ul- Hassan, Perveen, and Nadeem (2015) where there is a condition like the student family background is anti-English. In addition, In Pakistan rural areas, the students first learn Punjabi or some other local languages as their mother tongue. In schools, they learn Urdu as a national language, and after that English is taught. The data were collected by using questionnaire from 90 primary teachers. This study concluded that primary teachers face numbers of difficulties while teaching English at primary level in rural areas. The teachers described their difficulties related to grammar, pronunciation, vocabulary, and linguistic devices that students’ have (Behraam, Perveen, Nadeem, & Ul Hasan, 2015). In Indonesian context, there is a research conducted by Rahayu (2016). The aim of this study was to investigate the challenges encountered by English teachers in teaching English for young learners in rural public primary schools in Salatiga, Central Java. The data were collected from eight participants by using the semi-structured interview. The research found three challenges. First, there is no specific curriculum for teaching English at primary school. Second, the educational background of the teachers is mostly not from English education. Third, students’ achievement and motivation are really influenced by parents’ socioeconomic status (Rahayu, 2016). Reflecting on the previous elaboration, the studies about teaching English in the rural areas were only focusing on primary education. In the context of this research, this study aimed at exploring teachers’ challenges in teaching English at P a g e | 88 Rahmi Fadilah LET: Linguistics, Literature and Language Teaching Journal Vol. 13 No. 1 2023 secondary school located in rural areas and the way to solve those challenges through their own reflection. The significance of the research is for giving the teachers’ view on facing the challenges in every condition of teaching English and for giving a picture to the government about the real condition of teaching English in the rural areas. The purpose of the study is to know English teachers’ difficulties during their practice in rural areas of Indonesia and how they overcome those difficulties encountered in their teaching. Indonesia Teachers and Socio-cultural Conditions In Indonesia context, about teaching profession is mainly organized by the Indonesia law Number 14 in 2005 about teachers and lecturers. In this law, teachers are professional educators with the main task to educate, teach, guide, direct, train, assess, and evaluate learners in early childhood formal education path, primary education, and secondary education (Government of Indonesia, 2005). Here, the teaching profession has led by the government to have specific tasks to guide the teachers to do their job. Besides the task, teachers have specific roles to help teachers in teaching and learning process. Littlewood in Milon (2016) mentions teachers’ role as the facilitators of learning, it means they facilitate the process of teaching and learning to achieve the objectives of the lesson. In addition, Harmer (2007) mentions that teachers have five roles, they are controllers to control the activity in the classroom, they are prompters to remind students’ to stay on the track in the learning process, they are resources in the learning process, and they are also the tutors to help students in the learning process. In addition, Brown (2001) mentions teachers as the controllers, directors, managers, facilitators, and resources. As a controller, the teacher chooses the students’ activity, the time and language that will be used. As a director, the teacher has to control the learning process become smooth, effective, and efficient. As a manager, the teacher has to plan the lesson, modules, and courses. As a facilitator, the teacher has to guide the students through the process learning to be an independent learner. The last, as resources means the teacher has to have much knowledge related to the subject. P a g e | 89 Rahmi Fadilah LET: Linguistics, Literature and Language Teaching Journal Vol. 13 No. 1 2023 Gebhard (2000) also mentions teachers as assessors, text adapters, classroom managers, and entertainers. Being assessors mean teachers need to assess students’ condition. Being text adapters mean teachers should engage with the learning material and creates an appropriate activity based on that learning material. Being classroom managers mean teachers have to manage the classroom situation well. Being entertainers mean teachers should teach students in an entertaining way, such as role-play, song, playing games, and so on. Beside teachers’ tasks and roles, another side that can be seen in the context of teaching English in the rural area is about the socio-cultural condition. That because the teacher should deal with that condition along with their tasks and roles. The most popular theory about socio-cultural is proposed by Lev Vygotsky. It is about the role of society to develop the individual. This theory considers the relationship between the development of individual and the culture around them. In the context of learning, this theory believes that cultural and attitude will influence the learning process (Cletus, Njok, & Edinyang, 2014). It is actually clear that it is important for the teacher to pay attention to the socio-cultural condition. Moreover, from the sociolinguistic perspective, there are five elements in a socio-cultural view of teaching English in rural areas. First, the economic situation, it deals with the way of society in one culture for making money to support their life. Second, the formal and functional constructs, they deal with the level formality and the function of that language involves in the specific environment. Third, social needs and class, it is about the priority of each culture. Fourth, social relationships and behaviors, it is about the social roles that are accepted in that society and how the society interacts through appropriate behaviors such as politeness, confidence, insecurity, and so on. Fifth, cultural and historical heritage, it is about tradition, ritual, and the value of each culture that influences their life (Medina, 2013). The understanding of this element will help teacher deals with that socio-cultural condition. In order to solve the problem in the socio-cultural condition, teachers’ social pedagogy becomes important. Several countries have different ways to P a g e | 90 Rahmi Fadilah LET: Linguistics, Literature and Language Teaching Journal Vol. 13 No. 1 2023 define social pedagogy, for example, Germany defines social pedagogy as an area that is independent. It has a function to deal with the social sides that are not covered by the school, family and social security (Peukert in Lukesova & Martincová, 2015). The adaptive model is seen as the best way to deal with the socio-cultural condition, it is about the way teachers to build a relationship with the society. The mobilization model is seen as the most radical model in Sweden which directly targeted to the society through specific action to solve the problem in socio- cultural condition. The last, the democratic model is seen as less radical than mobilization model which deals with individual beliefs through democratic dialogue that can change human understanding in socio-cultural condition (Kornback and Jensen in Lukesova & Martincová, 2015). In the context of Indonesia, the two concepts from Germany and Sweden can be adapted as the way to solve the socio-cultural condition in the society around the rural area. To sum up, in the context of teaching English at rural areas, the analysis of teachers’ task, teachers’ roles and their relationship with the socio-cultural condition is actually needed to help the teacher dealing with specific issues at rural education. Education in Rural Areas and Challenges in ELT Rural is an appropriate word for saying everything that not urban or metropolitan (Monk, 2007). These rural areas have specific characteristics because of their location, they are typically remote and underdeveloped (Plessis, 2014). Because of that profile, there will be many problems that will be faced by teachers in the rural areas. One of them is the quality of education. As Plessis (2014) mentions that many negative factors that influence the quality of education in the rural areas. These kind issues have already become the concern of the government and teacher to find the best way to solve that negative factors. According to Wallin and Reimer (in Plessis, 2014), rural schools have several characteristics in the educational problem. First, rural schools are far from the urban area to get services. Second, rural schools are difficult to access the quality staff, service from university, and the development for the teachers. Third, the number of teachers is not suitable for students and subjects. The last, the P a g e | 91 Rahmi Fadilah LET: Linguistics, Literature and Language Teaching Journal Vol. 13 No. 1 2023 school budgeting is not enough to provide good facilities for learning. The problems above, of course, make the teachers face many difficulties and limitation in teaching English in the rural areas. To be specified, in the context of learning English, also there will be many challenges. First, in the environment and schools’ side, the rural schools get many disadvantages because of the infrastructures such as the condition of the roads, the bridges to the school, the sanitations, and also the schools’ facilities. It will obviously influence the process of learning English. Rural areas educational institutions do not have enough logistic support such as facilities and resources of learning that will contribute to the improvement to learn English (Hossain, 2016; Plessis, 2014). It will be a challenge for English teachers to be more creative on avoiding the limitation of the environment and school condition. Second, in the students’ side, students in the rural area seem to be lack motivation because of the family factor and financial condition of the students. According to Hossain (2016), children performance on learning something will be influenced by the family factor. Students in rural areas have low performance in learning English compared to students in urban areas because it is related to their parents’ education. Mostly their parents do not really care about their children education because of the lack of knowledge about it. He adds the socio-economic factor of their family also one of the factors that affect their performance in learning English. It is about the access to get enough educational resources which high cost for the learning process. Third, in the teacher side, in the rural area, there are several less qualified teachers and teachers have to teach many subjects based on needs. Also, teachers need to deal with the socio-cultural condition in those rural areas. Proper teaching technique and strong pedagogical models are all the things that English teachers must have to solve that problem (Holguin & Morales, 2016). As the summary, theory mentions that teacher in rural education face many challenges related to the environments, students, and teachers. There is a need for them to deal with that condition carefully to achieve the goal of education. P a g e | 92 Rahmi Fadilah LET: Linguistics, Literature and Language Teaching Journal Vol. 13 No. 1 2023 METHOD This is a case study in the form of descriptive qualitative. The subjects of this research were chosen purposively. It is considered to be typical or representative of that which is being studied. There were two English teachers in rural area that are being participants in this research. The reason of the researcher chose this participant are those teachers have at least one-year experiences in rural areas of Indonesia, they have the same educational background, and they have experiences in both rural and urban area. Instrument The data were collected by using the semi-structured interview and document. In this study, the use of semi-structured interview is because all questions used flexibly, there is a chance to follow up the answer of the participants (Merriam, 2009). It is used for knowing the challenging that the teacher gets during their practice in rural area. In addition, documents in the form of teachers’ journals were used as data to confirm teachers’ statements on the interview and knowing the depth and detail data about teacher experiences in rural area. Data Analysis After collecting the data, the researcher analyzed the collected data by using qualitative data analysis. That will follow these steps: First, the researchers transcribe the data from the interview recorded and teachers journal, then the researchers give a code of the participant on alphabetical order of their names, after that the researchers give read again whole part of transcription. Then, the researchers were taking a note about preliminary themes that participants talk about. After that, the researchers categorized the data based on potentially relevant for answering research questions, then, the researchers sorted the data based on need and naming them, the last, the researchers write the data descriptively and looking back to the theoretical review (Merriam, 2009; Burhan-horasanli & Ortaçtepe, 2016 ; Patton in Burhan-horasanli & Ortactepe, 2016). P a g e | 93 Rahmi Fadilah LET: Linguistics, Literature and Language Teaching Journal Vol. 13 No. 1 2023 FINDING AND DISCUSSION The English Teachers in Rural Area and their Teaching Condition and Institution Schools’ Facilities, Condition, and Learning Resources As mention by Plessis in 2014, rural areas have special characteristics because of the location. It also happens in rural areas of Indonesia, they are typically remote and underdeveloped. However, rural education in Indonesia seems more complex than rural education abroad due to their extreme condition. Based on interview and document analysis concerning the teachers’ teaching condition and institution, the school condition and facilities become the first challenge faced by English teachers in rural area. Two English teachers, Shanum and Nay that involve in this research mentioned the same thing, the conditions of the schools are not good and the facilities do not complete to support teaching and learning process. Shanum mentioned that: “My school condition is not really good, the building is old enough, and there is no renovation at all, if the day was raining, the school will be flooded and there is no access to go to the school. Moreover, there is no electricity at the certain time and the internet signal is limited based on the weather condition.” Actually, Shanum and Nay are not frustrated about that condition, since they have already been given the training and knowledge about the location that they will face. However, in the context of teaching English, it becomes the problem for both of them, since teaching English means teaching all of the skills; listening, reading, writing, and speaking. For example, due to electricity, they cannot use ICT to teach listening, they just teach it orally, and somehow it is difficult to introduce the target language well to the students. It is clear in the context of education, as the part of learning process, the facilities and school condition are important in the process of teaching and learning. These circumstances become the barriers of the teachers to teach English in their school. Moreover, another condition, Shanum also mentioned about the limitation on learning resources: “There is only one book that teacher has, no one has a book to learn, so I have to write everything in the blackboard because if I want to copy it, I have to go to the urban area that is quite far from that school.” P a g e | 94 Rahmi Fadilah LET: Linguistics, Literature and Language Teaching Journal Vol. 13 No. 1 2023 Nay and Shanum have the similar problem with the sources of learning that students have to use in the classroom situation. It becomes more challenging since the book is only provided for the teachers or if the schools have the book; it is not enough for all students. Wellin and Reimer (In Plessis, 2014) mention that rural schools have decreased the funding because of the number of the students. It is in line with Hawanti (in Rahayu, 2016) says lack of resources in the school actually really influenced by the school budgeting. Many rural areas schools cannot buy the learning media such as book, picture, notebook, and so on due to the budget shortage. In the context of teaching English, it is a must for the teacher to provide enough learning sources because English is not students’ own language. The biggest problem about learning resources, especially textbooks used, is the teacher really depending on those textbooks to teach English (Rahayu, 2016). However, it will be difficult in the condition of rural area education if teacher depends on the textbook only. As a way of solution, they have to be creative to solve that problem. Nay, the second respondent of this research mentioned that: “I ask the students to borrow the notes from another class in order to maximize my teaching time due to books’ limitation. Also, I search in the library all books related to my subject, and use it in the group to make every student can use the book.” Another way to solve the limitation, according to Shanum, is by using realia to teach: “I use the real object to teach English, for example, I use one of my students when teaching descriptive text and the students can see directly what is going to be described.” The use of group work as mentioned by Nay is really helpful to help the limitation in the rural education. By using group work, students can share the book and idea about what they are going to learn. Another way, such as what has been done by Shanum, using real world is somehow also helpful rather than the picture in the book or notebook. The students can learn directly from something they are familiar with, so the learning process will be easier. In order to deal with the problems above, based on the interview and document analysis, the two English teachers tried to strengthen their roles as the resources of learning. According to Brown (2001), being resources means P a g e | 95 Rahmi Fadilah LET: Linguistics, Literature and Language Teaching Journal Vol. 13 No. 1 2023 teachers should know what students’ need and should enrich their knowledge to be able to answer every question to be the sources of learning, since the learning resources is not enough for the students in rural areas, teachers have to be the first resource of learning for students in rural areas, means teachers have to master the subject well. In addition, Harmer (2007a) mentions that even the teachers are the resources in the learning process; they also have to make sure that students are independent to learn many things; though they only have limited resources. Nay and Shanum actually tried to maximize their role as the resources, they tried to make the learning process become smoothly by using their own knowledge and creativity, even though the condition and facilities are limited. Curriculum Implementation Second, it is about the implementation of the curriculum; both of schools that appear in this research use the latest of curriculum. The curriculum is same as the urban areas; even their condition is different due to students’ level. In the case of Nay, she tried to make her own version of lesson plan and syllabus that are suitable with students’ need, because there is no example from the previous teachers about the lesson plan for their students at rural areas. In addition, Shanum mentioned the problem of implementation of curriculum is in the part of the learning material. Due to students’ level, she has to make the material as easy as possible, since the students are lack of knowledge about English. It is difficult for her to achieve the goal of the curriculum. Wallin and Reimer (in Plessis, 2014) mention that the rural school is actually lack of qualified staff, development, and university service which can be the cause why the implementation of the curriculum is not really maximum in the rural areas. Nay and Shanum agreed that they lack training about curriculum and their development during their practice in the rural areas. In order to solve those challenges, both of them tried to adapt the curriculum and make them suitable for students’ condition. In this case, of course, Shanum and Nay need to be able to be an adapter, it means that they can make the curriculum objectives are achieved and they should know about the best material and activity that they can use in the classroom situation. Gebhard (2000) mentions P a g e | 96 Rahmi Fadilah LET: Linguistics, Literature and Language Teaching Journal Vol. 13 No. 1 2023 one role of teachers is being text adapter, it means that teacher should acknowledge herself with the learning material and arranging the activities that are needed based on the material. It is about the English learning material that teachers should consider for making the curriculum implementation become maximum. In addition, Nay and Shanum also tried to do their role as manager. As managers mean teachers need to plan everything that will happen in the classroom situation in the context of the curriculum implementation, it includes lesson, modules, and courses; to make the curriculum fits well with students’ condition and need (Brown, 2001). Schools’ Leadership The third condition is about the leadership condition of the school. It is about the important role of headmaster in the rural area school. Nay mentioned that: “I have a class after Dzuhur prayer, that class is always dismissed if there is no headmaster at school due to his duty to the ministry of education office in the city. So, in that school, if there is no headmaster, the students will come home earlier. In the normal situation, they will go back to their home at 02.00 p.m, however, if there is no headmaster, they will come home at 12.00 p.m. I am really disturbed because of that condition.” Shanum also mentioned the similar things: “The headmaster is often going to the city due to his job for several days, it is about six hours from the rural area, the school situation will be better if there is a headmaster standby in the school.” Schools’ leader in all setting of education is actually really important. Sahenk (2010) mentions that one function of headmaster in a school is to make sure that the learning process is running well. However, the roles of headmasters in the rural areas are more difficult than in urban areas because of its different characteristics. Nay and Shanum tried to communicate with their headmasters about their problem. However, they did not find any concrete solution since the headmasters are also busy with their job. To solve the problem regarding the schedule in the school, they used any empty time if other teachers are not coming to one class for maximizing the teaching process. P a g e | 97 Rahmi Fadilah LET: Linguistics, Literature and Language Teaching Journal Vol. 13 No. 1 2023 The English Teachers in Rural Area and their Students Motivation and Students’ Levels in the Rural Area Hossain (2016) mentions that students in the rural areas are having low achievement rather than students in the urban areas because of their motivation. This statement is proven by Shanum, she mentioned: “In my place, I found that actually students’ have good motivation to learn. For example, I ever offer them to go to my house after the school time, many of them come. However, their motivation cannot support their own condition; they have to go to work and do not have a dream to go to higher education. Of course, that made many of them low achiever rather than students’ in the urban areas.” Nay also mentioned: “Students here are actually same like the urban areas, there are students which low and high achiever, and however, they do not have good motivation to continue their education due to their economic situation.” From two statements, we can see that they have the same problem with motivation and students’ achievement. Lee (in Rahayu, 2016) mentions that English subject for students is not as a reasonable lesson that they can master. Lee’s statement is supported by Shanum and Nay, they mentioned about English as an alien subject for the students, students think it is difficult to learn. The reason, maybe, as Ho in Rahayu (2016) mentions, because they never see and meet the real condition of using English, such as meeting the foreigners, that make them interest to learn and communicate in English. As the solution to these challenges, Nay and Shanum taught English as simple and easy as possible. They tried first to be an assessor and director in order to assess students’ level and need to make an appropriate lesson for them. Also, they tried to strengthen their role as the participant and tutor in the learning process. Harmer (2007a) mentions that the teacher as a participant and a tutor means that teacher should be able to participate in students’ activity proportionally and guide the students to achieve the learning objective. In addition, they also tried to be an entertainer for making the learning environment become enjoyable to increase the motivation level of the students (Gebhard, 2000). P a g e | 98 Rahmi Fadilah LET: Linguistics, Literature and Language Teaching Journal Vol. 13 No. 1 2023 Students’ Passive Learning and their L1 Students’ passiveness in learning a language can be the biggest barrier to teach English, especially in teaching and learning in the 21st century where students as the center of the learning process. In the context of teaching English in rural areas, Nay and Shanum mentioned similar things; the students tend to be passive. The reason that they mentioned related to their L1, Shanum mentioned that: “If I speak Bahasa, many of them do not really understand what I am saying, so I try to learn their mother language, even just a little. Because of that condition, they are really passive in the learning process.” In addition, Nay mentioned that: “I have one student that cannot speak Bahasa even a little, and the rest of them have different dialect to pronounce a word in English. So, they choose to be passive in the classroom because they are afraid their dialect will make everybody in the classroom laugh.” It can be seen that teachers deal with students’ passiveness due to their own L1 and dialect which is different English Teachers’ L1. Harmer (2007b) says the first thing that needs to be remembered is that students are going to translate what is happening into their L1 whether teachers want it or not. It is a natural process of learning a foreign language. However, about students’ L1 in the rural areas, they use their mother tongue, but English teacher cannot understand that language fully. Nay and Shanum have the same experience; they have students that cannot speak Bahasa for communicating with other, it makes English teachers are difficult to deliver the material in the classroom. It is in line with a study from Behraam et al. (2015) which mentions rural students is difficult in the grammar, pronunciation, vocabulary due to their L1 and dialect (Behraam et al., 2015). It becomes the major cause why they are low achievement and they are really passive in the learning process. Both of them tried to learn the students’ L1 even still a little. Besides becoming teachers, Rural area English teachers also become learners in order to be successful in teaching English. Harmer (2007b) mentions an English language classroom needs an English environment in the room, where P a g e | 99 Rahmi Fadilah LET: Linguistics, Literature and Language Teaching Journal Vol. 13 No. 1 2023 English is heard and used as much as possible. In teaching English in the rural area, it is not really possible to use much English due to students’ L1. In addition, Shanum and Nay tried to maximize their role as controller, manager, participant and prompter in order to make students active in the learning process. Being controller and manager mean the teacher has to manage and control the learning process; it will be helpful for accommodating the students’ condition and learning process. Being participant is really helpful for students’ passiveness; the teacher can participate first in the learning process and lead the students to be independent learners. Being prompter means the teacher should make the learning process is on the track, so the students will learn a lot from the specific part of the subject (Harmer 2007a; Brown 2001; Gebhard, 2000) The English Teachers in rural area and the Socio-Cultural Condition Students and Parents’ Conditions Previous study generally found that students’ social-economic status has influenced the students’ achievement and development in learning English at school context (Rahayu, 2016). Shanum mentioned that: “The relationship between teachers and parents is actually good, but if it is about the money condition, they will come to the school to protest if the students have to buy a book” From Shanum’s statement, it is about the parents’ condition, such as parental income, educational background, and job that actually will affect the process of learning English. Church, Elliot, and Gabble (2001) mention that the economic situation such as the rich and poor family, will influence students’ scores in schools, college enrolment, and graduation rates. It seems that students come from the poor family are having lower achievement than students from the rich family. In the rural area as mentioned by Shanum and Nay, the students are mostly from poor family. According to Shanum, the condition is like this: “Many of my students do not come to school or get permission in the middle of the learning process because they have to help their parents especially in Friday due to market day in that region.” Also, Nay mentioned that: P a g e | 100 Rahmi Fadilah LET: Linguistics, Literature and Language Teaching Journal Vol. 13 No. 1 2023 “There is no opportunity to give them homework because of they have to work after school to help their parents.” From what Shanum and Nay said, sometimes, it can be seen that the learning process is not really effective due to the duty of the students to help their parents for making money because of their economic condition. The English learning process in the rural area is not optimal due to economic condition that requires students to get permission from the school where they have to learn English and another subject. In addition, Hossain (2016) mentions that the parent education also influences the students’ performance in learning. However, in this research, Shanum and Nay mentioned economical problem is a bigger problem rather than parents’ education. In addition, a study conducted by Rahayu (2016) mentions the same things that socioeconomic status from parents plays a big role in students’ motivation and achievement in learning English. Moreover, from the sociolinguistic perspective, the economic situation consider as one of the problem in the socio-cultural condition in teaching English in the rural areas (Medina, 2013). To solve the problem related with parents’ condition, there is nothing that Nay could do; she only could maximize the process of learning when the students in the classroom, but Shanum tried to give free courses in her house after students’ help their parents to make them learn better. Shanum tried to be the facilitator of students’ learning. Littlewood in Milon (2016) mentions that teachers as facilitator of learning process will help the students to learn not only in the school condition but also in the outside of the classroom. Students’ and Teachers’ Culture and Society Vygotsky mentions that the society and culture play the important role for students to learning something (Cletus et al., 2014). This research found that the English teachers in rural area found several difficulties regarding culture and society; first, it is about the close-minded society and teacher. In this case, there is a strength ownership of the school from the society. Shanum mentioned that: “The school actually needs some renovations; however, the society around that school is really sensitive if the resources of the renovation P a g e | 101 Rahmi Fadilah LET: Linguistics, Literature and Language Teaching Journal Vol. 13 No. 1 2023 come from the urban area. They will block the street to go the school once there is a resource from the city which comes to the school.” Moreover, Nay mentioned that teacher is also close-minded to face problematic students: “The teachers are difficult to accept the new thing, for example, if I try to make the students in the same level, there are no naughty students in my view, but other teachers cannot accept that due to their belief that naughty student cannot change their behavior at all.” It can be seen that the closed-minded society and teacher influence English learning process from the socio-cultural perspectives. Here, social relation and behavior can be the barriers of teachers to teach English in rural areas (Medina, 2013). Nay and Shanum tried hard to deal with this problem; they did such a kind of democratic way. The democratic model deals with individuals’ belief through dialogue that can change human understanding in socio-cultural condition (Kornback & Jensen in Lucesova & Martincofa, 2014). Nay and Shanum did such a kind of dialogue with the teacher, headmaster, and society to make them become open-minded. However, the result is not really significant, since it is difficult to change someone perspectives in the short time. Second, from cultural side, in these two rural areas, there is a culture that alcohol and cigarette is not something which is really forbidden, it is like the culture of society around that rural areas. Shanum and Nay mentioned similar things, alcohol and cigarette become the cultural problem in rural areas. Shanum mentioned: “There is no strict rule if students come to school after drinking alcohol or smoking; it is something which is common there. As long as they do not do those things in the school area.” Nay also mentioned: “It is really common on our table if there is a teacher meeting; there is a bottle of alcohol there. I can’t stand with that condition.” Both Nay and Shanum tried to deal with this problem also in the democratic way, they try to do dialogue and do the mini-seminar on the disadvantages of cigarette and alcohol. However changing the culture of the P a g e | 102 Rahmi Fadilah LET: Linguistics, Literature and Language Teaching Journal Vol. 13 No. 1 2023 society is not easy; they said that dealing with the socio-cultural condition is somehow confusing because according to Medina (2013), culture is something about tradition that strongly influences the society. It can be seen that Nay and Shanum tried to maximize their role as the facilitator of learning. Littlewood in Millon (2016) mention teachers’ role as the facilitator of learning means they facilitate the process teaching and learning in the context of the socio-cultural condition. CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS The English teachers are having many challenges in teaching English in the rural areas. The problems come from their teaching condition and the institution, their students’ condition, and the socio-cultural condition around them. All of that challenges influence the English teaching and learning process. In order to face that challenges, the English teacher in rural area tried to maximize their role as a teacher. They solve that problem by doing their roles as the facilitator of learning, text adapter, participant, resource, controller, assessor, manager, entertainer, and director. Also, they have to strengthen their social pedagogy knowledge to solve the problems of socio-cultural condition. However, they still have to find the best solution on dealing with teaching English in the rural area. As the recommendation, first, it is better for the English teachers in rural area to get special training from the government related to socio-cultural and mother language of the students before teaching in the rural area. It seems that students’ socio-cultural and mother language become the biggest problem that the English teachers tried to deal with. Second, there is a need for teachers to be more reflective in their teaching. In the context of rural area education, there are many challenges that need their better qualifications and competencies. This kind of challenges can be solved if there is an awareness of teachers to reflect their own teaching in order to improve their professional development and the quality of students’ learning by evaluating their teaching process consciously. Third, for further researchers, classroom observation about what the English teachers in P a g e | 103 Rahmi Fadilah LET: Linguistics, Literature and Language Teaching Journal Vol. 13 No. 1 2023 rural area doing in the classroom will actually give more accurate data to get the new perspective on the field of teaching English at rural area education. REFERENCES Behraam, S., Perveen, S., Nadeem, M., & Ul Hasan, M. (2015). 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